Another nuance of activity occurred in Bali on Tuesday, as the parole process for Schapelle Corby inched forward once again. Representatives of an agency of the Indonesian Justice Department visited the house where she would be required to live if she were let out of jail early.

Schapelle Corby is escorted by police to a courtroom in Denpasar in 2006. Photo: AFP

Even though she has not yet applied for parole, as with all things Corby, the "news" drove some of the frothier parts of the Australian media into habitual overdrive.

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Some outlets have even put a date on her release – October 30.

Well, that may or may not be so. Like the last time a date was so confidently predicted (in May last year, August 2012 was said to be when she would return to Australia), it's far enough away to be possible, yet not so close that anyone is held accountable if the date is missed.

So, assuming her release is coming up after almost nine years in jail, let's take the opportunity to assess our attitude to Schapelle Corby.

Many people have spent a great deal of time and energy poring over this one woman's case – the Australian consulate in Bali; authors; lawyers; dozens, if not hundreds of journalists; prison officials, professional internet conspiracy theorists, politicians in both Australia and Indonesia.

It's not only the Australian media who go into a frenzy at the mention of her name. She has become a touchstone in the Indonesian press, too. There, though, it's not about an innocent entrapped in a third-world system, it's about the ugly habit of Westerners to aggressively demand special treatment.

The head of Bali's Kerobokan jail, Gusti Ngurah Wiratna, remarked to the press in frustration recently: "I've got 1000 prisoners, why are you only interested in Schapelle?"

Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of dollars, have changed hands – for paid interviews with the family, internet ads, defamation actions and other civil court actions, royalties and lawyers fees.

Her 2004 arrest and imprisonment has turned into a Schapelle industry.

Sadly, for several years, the subject of that industry has suffered from severe mental health issues, and has largely removed herself from its centre. Even the Corby family-friendly journalists can only quote "those who know and live with her" in their stories because Corby herself refuses any direct interaction with the press.

She does not even go to the visitor's area of Kerobokan in case there might be journalists there. Her absence, for the same reason, from compulsory prison events, has potentially even harmed her cause.

For a long time Fairfax Media readers have held the dual belief that Corby is guilty, but that she deserves a shortened sentence.

Views of her innocence in the broader public are likely to be higher, but substantially lower than at the height of the "Our Schapelle" frenzy of 2004 and 2005.

It's her perceived innocence that initially drove the Corby story to the point of obsession, but even though this has changed, nine years later, we in the media remain closely focused on every detail of her incarceration and possible release.

Perhaps we assume people will be moved by the same impulses, or the echoes of the impulses, that moved them a decade ago.

But let's consider what all this will mean when she is ultimately released, whether on parole or at the end of her sentence.

After 10 years in a bubble, Corby will be exposed to the world.

She'll be walking the narrow streets of Kuta, living in a Balinese compound whose address is well known, with the world's media – including a chaotic Indonesian press pack – on her doorstep.

The inevitable paid interviews will create an appetite among the unsuccessful bidders for exclusives of a different kind – for evidence of her poor mental state, for pictures of her drinking her first beer, wearing a bikini at the beach, hanging out with a man, throwing a tantrum.

In the open, she'll lack the protection afforded by the Australian consulate from the tourists and stickybeaks who even now occasionally try to get into the jail to visit her.

The local police are unwilling and unequipped to provide any protection.

Whatever you think of her guilt or innocence, Corby has served a long sentence, and her adjustment to life on the outside – difficult as it will be already – can only be made immeasurably harder by such attention.

CORBY: THE FACTS• Corby has been eligible for parole for more than a year, since the Indonesian president granted her clemency with a five-year sentence reduction;• She has not yet applied for parole, and the Indonesians have not started the process, because the Indonesian immigration department has not yet confirmed that she can get a visa to be able to serve out her sentence in Bali with her sister Mercedes and brother-in-law Wayan;• All the other conditions for parole – including an unprecedented letter from the Australian government guaranteeing her good behaviour – are in place;• With continued remission for good behaviour, she is likely to be out in 2015 even if she does not win parole.

132 comments

Speak for yourself, to me she is just another dumb Aussie drug smuggler and I have never been able to figure out the Medias obsession and continued determination to report every insignificant fact about her and her even dumber sister.

Commenter

Robbo

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 3:11PM

Could not agree more. Imagine the trashy magazine covers everywhere of this family when she does get out, the paid interviews and maybe even a stint on Big Brother - that could be worse than jail..... Just another crim.

Commenter

dexxter

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 3:44PM

+1

Commenter

Jock Frazza

Location

Queenslander

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 3:47PM

Yea, she is just another dumb drug smuggler, the problem is she would have gotten a shorter sentence for planning a terrorist attack or gang raping someone.

She had a bag full of weed, who cares. It didn't wreck lives whatever some idiots would try to tell you and it certainly doesn't deserve two decades of imprisonment.

Commenter

Rocksteady

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 3:48PM

+2

The obsession is absurd. There are plenty of unattractive, quiet drug smugglers in Balinese prisons. I care about them equally; 0.

Commenter

Mr Z

Location

Melb

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 3:58PM

+ 1 TOO

I am sick to listen CORBY and her fam.

Commenter

jam

Location

perth

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 4:10PM

+3

wait for the dribble that all publications will try and push on us when she gets out.

Commenter

guber

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 4:18PM

rocksteady, Yes it was only weed and she didn't wreck any lives but she broke the laws of Indonesia. It is that simple so no sanctimonious comment is relevant. Whilst I don't care if people smoke pot, other jurisdictions have different ideas. So respect needs to be paid.. They can impose whatever law they like. You, I and any other foreigner have no right to dictate to any country how to run their country. Corby was just a ignorant fool thinking she could get away with it. She fell into the trap of thinking 'it won't happen to me'.

Commenter

hg

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 4:20PM

+3 Why does the media keep bringing up the Shapelle saga? It's like clockwork, every three months. We really, really are not interested in the machinations of yet another drug mule.

Commenter

luke r

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 4:27PM

Seems like the media has the obsession. I couldn't give a flying fig (or something like that) what happens to her